Know your customer (KYC) is a process through which businesses are required to verify the identities of their customers. Many organizations have not yet completed this kind of verification, and they can be penalized by Google for opening hours that do not match the company’s stated business hours.
The “google my business” is a tool that allows users to manage their opening hours in Google Business Profile. The feature was released by Google on April 13, 2017.
Consider the following situation.
You’re a dog owner, and your loyal companion needs treats. The pet store’s Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) entry indicates that it is open. You travel across town in search of pet goodies, only to discover that the pet shop is CLOSED.
Unsplash is the source of this image.
Assume you’re the proprietor of a pet shop. You’ve just saddened a dog. Furthermore, you enraged a pet owner. They just gave you a perfect Google review, and now you’ve lost their business.
Something as apparently innocuous as shop hours may have far-reaching implications for both consumers and company owners. As a result, it’s critical to maintain your opening hours current and exact!
The ‘Now Open Near Me’ Chance
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that posting inaccurate opening times on the internet is a terrible idea. This may have a significant impact on a company’s ability to acquire, convert, and retain consumers.
Is there, however, an economic case for keeping your operating hours as long as possible? Since 2013, the number of searches for terms like “open today near me” has continuously increased:
Google Trends is the source of this information.
Google allows consumers to filter search results based on business hours, which is another another reason why a company’s reported business hours must be accurate.
On desktop, the ‘hours’ filter and the ‘open now’ button both reflect the ‘open now’ search trend:
We’ve become used to rapid satisfaction and impulsive purchases in this day of heavy smartphone usage. As a result, depending on your vertical, make sure you’re aware of the ‘open now near me’ potential in your niche.
‘Open now near me’ searches are becoming more popular for a multitude of reasons:
Think With Google (source)
Hours of operation
Google Business Profile (GBP) listings should only be produced for companies that have a physical presence that consumers can visit or that travel to customers’ locations.
What exactly are ‘opening hours?’
Your usual customer-facing hours of operation should be your opening hours. These are the moments when a client or prospective customer may come in and see you.
The opening hours of a service-area firm would be the periods when you would expect someone to answer the phone.
Certain kinds of businesses, such as those with varying hours or those that only operate by appointment, should not post opening hours information, according to Google.
Google’s standards for indoor housing, schools and universities, theaters, transit, event sites, and natural elements may be found here.
What are the locations where the opening times are displayed?
Your Google business hours will appear on the search engine results page (SERP) for your GBP listing:
Whether your company is listed open or closed by Google depends on your business hours at the time of search (see 1 in the image above). There’s also a section devoted to your usual business hours (see 2 in the image above).
Users may read the complete details of a company’s week-long opening hours by clicking on ‘More hours’ (if the business has different kinds of hours defined) or the little arrow (if the business only has regular hours set):
Businesses may be marked as open or closed in Google Local Finder and Google Maps, as well as the hours of operation for that day.
In the Local Finder, the following are the hours of operation:
On the desktop, Google Maps has the following opening times:
Google will often mark your altered business hours in the Business Profile page. This, I suppose, provides a ‘trust signal’ to consumers and prospective customers that the company is concerned about the accuracy of the information:
How to Change Google’s Business Hours
You may add and change your Google business hours from a variety of locations.
I’ll go through how to update your hours using Google Search’s direct edit feature and the Google Business Profile Manager.
What exactly is a direct edit? Google started changing the methods that companies may update and alter their Business Profiles in 2017. These changes might now be made immediately in Google Search by just searching for the company name.
This has the advantage of allowing profile owners to view their profiles without having to use the GBP app or online interface. Google dubbed it New Merchant Xperience (NMX) at first, but it’s also known as straight edit.
You’ll enter hours for each day of the week individually, and you may indicate a break in operating hours by making several entries on the same day.
Experience with Direct Editing
Click ‘Edit profile’ after searching for your company name on Google:
Then, under the ‘hours row,’ choose Monday through Sunday. You may fill up your normal operating hours here.
You may enter numerous entries for each day if you operate on a’split hours’ basis—for example, if your company shuts for lunch and/or supper. In this scenario, click the + symbol next to the relevant day(s) and enter your second or third set of hours.
Google Business Profile Manager is a tool that allows you to manage your Google business profile.
To update your opening hours, go to the ‘Info’ page and click the pencil:
Hours of Special Interest
Special hours enable companies to highlight important occasions, such as public holidays or special events, with a different operating schedule than usual.
After you’ve established your usual opening hours, you can add Google business special hours. Also, the special hours option should only be used to shut your company for up to six days in a row.
You must identify your company as temporarily closed if you need to shut it for seven days or more in a row.
Where can I find Google’s business special hours?
Your special hours will generate your opening hours based on the dates you’ve specified, and they’ll appear in the Local Pack, the Local Finder, Google Maps, and your Business Profile.
‘Special hours’ is used in the example below to designate a certain day the next week when the company will be closed.
The company is indicated as ‘closed’ on the appropriate day when the week that includes the date in question is reached:
Adding and Editing ‘Special Hours’ in Your Google Business
The straight edit interface does not presently display special hours. You’ll need to go to the GBP dashboard to adjust Google’s business special hours.
To add special hours, go to the ‘Info’ page and then to ‘Add special hours’:
Google maintains a list of holidays organized by area, and it often sends out emails to companies reminding them to verify and change their special hours for these holidays:
To change your Google company holiday hours, go to the bottom of the ‘Special hours’ page and click ‘Add new day,’ then choose your dates from the calendar and enter the open and shut times for those days.
More Time
‘More hours’ allows a company to add a specified set of hours for various services.
“Generally, you should set’more hours’ as a subset of your main hours,” according to Google, however I’ve seen companies add extra hours outside of their usual opening hours for things like ‘online operating hours.’
These are the’more hours’ options:
- Access
- Breakfast
- Brunch
- Delivery
- Dinner
- Drive-through
- It’s happy hour!
- Timetables for the elderly
- Kitchen
- Lunch
- Hours of operation on the internet
- Pick up
- Takeaway
Where do the words’more hours’ appear?
When you click on’more hours’ in your Google Business Profile, this option appears:
It’s vital to remember that employing any of the’more hours’ categories outside of your usual working hours will have no impact on the SERP’s company opening time, which is based solely on your regular operating hours.
If you say you have ‘online working hours’ from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., but your normal hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., someone checking your business listing at 2.45 p.m. will find you tagged as ‘Closes soon’ and set to open at 9 a.m. :
More Hours Added and Updated
‘More hours,’ like’special hours,’ will not appear unless you have specified normal opening hours. You may accomplish this both by direct editing and using Google Business Profile Manager.
Using Direct Editing
Navigate to the ‘hours’ area in the direct edit interface to add’more hours’ using direct edit. Then, by choosing the appropriate option, you may pick the sort of hours you wish to add:
After that, you’ll be able to add the hours that apply to that service:
You may add as many’more hours’ kinds as your company need.
Google Business Profile Manager is a tool that allows you to manage your Google business profile.
Click on ‘More hours’ under the ‘Info’ tab:
You’ll next go through the identical steps as you did with the direct edit experience.
How can I temporarily shut down my company?
You must designate your company as ‘temporarily closed’ if you are going to be closed for more than six days. This may be done using either the direct edit interface or Google Business Profile Manager.
Using Direct Editing
Simply type in your company name, click ‘Edit profile,’ pick ‘Hours,’ and then ‘Temporarily closed’:
Google Business Profile Manager is a tool that allows you to manage your Google business profile.
Look for the part where you may select to label the company as closed under the ‘Info’ tab:
The Firm Profile listing for a temporarily shuttered business looks like this:
It looks like this in the Map Pack:
What if my company operates on a ‘appointment only’ basis?
Google does not offer a special option for this if your firm is only open by appointment.
According to these recommendations, appointment-only companies should not publish hours on their GBP.
You may indicate this in the ‘Business information’ part of the direct edit interface:
There isn’t a comparable option in Google Business Profile Manager, therefore you’ll have to go into your opening hours and declare yourself as closed:
When you do this, your GBP listing will no longer indicate opening hours:
Someone is always changing my business hours!
Opening hours, like many other aspects of a Google Business Profile, are vulnerable to third-party edits:
It’s conceivable that your company hours have been changed by a Google user. If you use incognito mode to search for your company, you may see this:
However, it’s also conceivable that Google is scraping information from a third-party website—check your company listings on Yelp and Facebook to see if any inaccurate opening hours are being collected from those sources.
If Google approves any third-party adjustments, you’ll get an email from Google stating that your opening hours have changed as a result of those edits if you’ve signed up for notifications:
You may use the direct edit experience to adjust your hours if you need to. Google will remind you that it may take up to three days for Google to review and publish your changes, so make any changes as soon as possible!
In conclusion
That’s all there is to it. If you didn’t realize how important it is to maintain your hours accurate and up to date before, you now do.
Hours may be simply modified through the direct experience, as you can see. You’ll still need to go to the Google Business Profile dashboard to add special hours at this stage.
BrightLocal’s Local Search Expert is Claire Carlile. Her job at Claire Carlile Marketing, where she helps small companies improve their digital marketing, enables her to bring real-world experience and talents to BrightLocal.
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Google Business Profile allows users to manage their opening hours. Users can set their opening hours by appointment or by day of the week. They can also specify when they are open, and what days they are closed. Reference: google business hours by appointment.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I change my business opening hours on Google?
A: To change your business opening hours, you should login to Google My Business and edit the information under Business Hours. You can also add a specific time or days that work best for your company by selecting the applicable option.
How do I temporarily close business hours on Google?
A: GOOGLE is not currently accepting new questions.
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